From the tactical display, I saw all six fighters had dropped back to six minutes behind us. None wanted to try duplicating that move. They were diving in more conventional, slower arcs.
Midas hugged the moon, slicing us low around bluffs and buttes, down deep dry valleys hidden from the sun, across wide dust plains that had never seen a footprint. At one point, we flew between two massive cliffs of striated rock.
'They're breaking,' Midas said, leaning us to port.
They were. Four dropped into dogged pursuit, chasing us low over the landscape. The other two had broken and were heading anti-clockwise around the blindside of Obol.
'Contact?'
'We'll meet them head on in eight minutes/ said Midas. He was smiling.
He pulled a hard starboard turn down a rift valley the topographer screen had only just illuminated.
Then he slowed down to what seemed a painful, easy velocity, and banked the gun cutter around a butte that glistened green and yellow in the hard sunlight.
'What are you doing?'
Wait... wait...'
The tactical screen showed that our four chasers had swept beyond the rift valley.
This low to the terrain, it'll take them a moment to figure out we're no longer ahead of them.'
'What now?'
He gunned the engines and threw us out over a dust bowl after the pursuit ships.
'Mouse becomes cat/ he said.
Within seconds, a bright blob on the weapons array had been covered with red crosshairs.
Ahead of us, through a landscape of giant rocks and towering mesas that whipped by at a distressing speed, I saw the flare of afterburners.
'Scratch one/ said Midas, firing the wing cannons.
The engine flare far ahead flashed and then turned into an expanding ball of burning gases which swept past us in jagged streaks.
I was pulled back into my seat as we jinked painfully down another valley. There was another flash, of sunlight off metal, a kilometre ahead.
'And two/ said Midas.
The read-out on the autoloaders notched up red tags as drums expended. The flash blossomed with light, and then again more brightly as it spun and struck the valley wall.
Something blindingly brilliant went off to our right, and the cabin rocked, alarms squealing.
'Smart boy, too close/ said Midas, hauling on the stick to avoid an incoming cliff.
One of the fighters had gauged our feint and come around across us.
Where's the other? Where's the other?' Midas murmured.
We had firepower on our side, firepower and Midas. The fighters were Lightnings, small, fast and dextrous, less than a quarter our size. For all intents and purposes, the gun-cutter was a transport, but its drive and weapon enhancements and its vertical thrust capability made it a formidable fighting ship when it came to a skirmish close down over terrain like this.
Something hit us hard, and we went over in a dizzying fall. Midas cursed and drew us back round in a tight turn. An Imperial fighter, just a blur of silver, crossed our field of vision.
Midas turned us again, and went after it. It ducked and turned down the deep gorges of the moon, flying by instruments alone in the cold shadows.
The gun-sensors picked up its heat trail. Midas fired on it.
He missed.
It tried to turn in a loop to come round at us. Midas fired again.
Another miss.
It came right at us. I could see the tracer jewels of its shots ripping at us.
Head to head. In a steep, deep gorge.
No room for manoeuvre. No room for error.
'Goodbye/ said Midas, thumbing the fire stud.
An explosion lit the deep gulf and we flew right through the flame wash.
'Had enough yet?' Midas asked me.
I didn't reply. I was too busy gripping my armrests.
'I have/ he said. Time for phase two. There's another hunter right around us, and the blindsiders will be coming up in ninety seconds. A little theatrics now. Uclid?'
The chief servitor warbled a response.
We went into a dive, hard. A display told me we were venting a trail of engine gases.
'Damage?' I asked.
'Play acting/ he told me.
The dark canyon floor rushed up to meet us.
'Jettison, Uclid/ Midas ordered.
There was a thump and a bang. The cutter rocked. Behind us, something flared.
What was that?'
Two tonnes of spares, trash and expendable supplies. Plus all the grenades from your weapons store.'
He banked us around hard, and we zoomed into a darker cavity, a wide, deep cave in the canyon base. The walls and roof seemed dangerously close.
Six hundred metres into the cave, Midas turned the cutter to the left, cutting the thrust, floodlights piercing the gloom and reflecting off the jagged cavity.
Another hundred metres, and we settled into the dust on our landing struts. Midas cut power, cut the lights, cut everything except the most rudimentary life support.
'Nobody make a sound/ he said.
The wait, which lasted for sixty-six hours, was neither comfortable nor pleasant. We wore heat gowns and sat in the gloom as, above us, the heretic fleet scoured Obol and its immediate zone for traces of us. Eight times in the first ten hours our passive sensors registered vehicle movement and scanning in the gorge where we had faked our destruction. The deception was apparently convincing.
But we bided our time. There was no telling how persistent they would be, or how patient. Midas thought it likely they might be playing the same trick as us, lying up quiet and waiting until we betrayed ourselves by movement or signal.
After forty hours, Lowink was confident he had overheard astropathic traffic exchanges indicating a fleet departure, shortly followed by a tremor in the fabric of the fathomless immaterium. But still we waited. Waited for the one thing that I would take as convincing.
Just after the turn of the sixty-sixth hour, it came. An astropathic signal in Glossia: 'Nunc dimittis.'
We lofted from the darkness of Obol into the starlight. Everyone on the ship, myself included, I freely admit, was suddenly talking too loud and too much as we moved around, basking in the bright cabin lights and the restored heating systems. The silent, cold wait had been like a penance.
The Essene, slow and majestic, moved in to meet us. Once the heretic fleet had left the system, Maxilla had emerged from hiding in the star's corona and sent his signal.
As soon as we were docked, I went straight to the bridge where Maxilla greeted me like a brother.
'Are we all alive?' he asked.
'In one piece, though it was close/
'I'm sorry I had to desert you, but you saw the size of that battlegroup/
I nodded. 'I'm hoping you can tell me where it went/
'Naturally/ he replied. His astronavigators had not been idle. The chief of them emerged from their annexe at the side of the domed bridge and hummed across the red-black marble of the floor to join us. Like all of his crew, it was essentially mechanical. Its organic, human component - my guess was no more than a brain and some key organs - supported both physically and biologically in a polished silver servitor sculpted in the form of a griffin, its draconian neck swept back so its beaked visage stared down at us. It floated on anti-grav plates built into its eagle wings.
It paused before us, and projected a holographic chart from its open beak. The star map was complex, and incomprehensible to the unschooled eye, but I made out some detail.
The navigators have analysed the warp-wake of the departing fleet and made a number of algorithmic computations. The heretics are moving out of the Helican sub-sector, out of Imperial space itself, into the forbidden stellar territories of a breed I believe are known as the saruthi/
'I had guessed as much. But that in itself is a considerable area, more than a dozen systems. We need specifics/
'Here/ said Maxilla, indicating a point on the shimmering three dimensio
nal chart with one gloved hand. The charts have it as KCX-1288. Under optimal conditions, it's thirty weeks away from here/
And what is the margin for error on this calculation?'
'No greater than point zero six. The warp-wake of the fleet was quite considerable. They may of course break the journey and re-route, but we will be watching for changes in their wake/
'Of course/ he added, 'They will presume us to be following. Even if they think you're dead, they'll know you had to have had a starship that brought you here. One they couldn't find/
The thought had crossed my mind too. Glaw and his conspirators must at least now be expecting pursuit, or expecting someone to inform on their whereabouts and destination. They would now be trusting on vigilance, their considerable massed firepower, and their headstart.
I already had Lowink busy preparing an emergency communique to send back to Gudrun and Inquisition command.
4Vhat do you know of the saruthi and their territory?'
'Nothing/ he said. 'I've never travelled there/
I thought this a curiously brief answer for a man so usually talkative.
'So/ he said at length, 'apart from our knowledge of where they're going, have we any other advantages?'
'We have/1 took from my coat pocket the item that had rested there ever since I had liberated it from Glaw's travelling trunk in North Qualm. Maxilla regarded it with frank perplexity.
'This/ I told him, 'is the Pontius/
* * *
We used a large, empty hold in the depths of the Essene. Some of Maxilla's servitors arranged lighting and powerfeeds. My own servitors - Modo and Nilquit - carried the claw-footed casket in and set in on the cold steel floor.
I stood watching, my hands buried deep in my overcoat pockets against the cold of the chamber. Aemos hunched over the casket and, with Nilquit's aid, began to connect cables. I looked over at Bequin. She stood next to Fischig, and was bundled up in a heavy red gown with a grey shawl, and there was an expression of grim reluctance on her face. She'd found it all fun at first, a game, even in the face of danger at House Glaw. But Damask had changed things for her. The monster Mandragore. She knew it wasn't a game anymore. She'd seen things that many - perhaps even most - citizens of the Imperium never see. Most lives are spent on safe worlds far from the touch of war and horror, and the obscenities that lurk out there in the darkest parts of the void are myths or rumours... if that.
But now she knew. Perhaps it had changed her mind. Perhaps she didn't want to be here any more. Perhaps she was now regretting jumping so eagerly for the offer I'd made her.
I didn't ask her. She'd tell me if she had to. We were all too committed now.
'Eisenhorn?' Aemos reached out his hands and I placed the cool hard ball of the Pontius in them. With almost priestly care, he fitted it into place.
I ordered everyone back out of the hold, even the servitors, everyone except Bequin and Aemos. Fischig closed the hold door behind him.
Aemos looked at me and I nodded assent. He made the final connection and then backed away from the casket as hurriedly as his old and augme-tised limbs could manage.
At first, nothing. Small tell-tale lights winked along the edge of the casket - Eyclone's casket - and the internal wiring glowed.
Then I felt a change in air-pressure. Bequin looked at me sharply, feeling it too.
The metal walls of the hold began to sweat. Beads of moisture popped and dribbled down the wall plating.
There was a faint crackling sound, like the gentle crisping of paper in flames. It spread, growing louder. Frost was forming on the casket, on the floor around it, spreading out across the hold's decking, up the walls, across the ceiling. A glittering thickness of diamond frost coated the interior of the hold in less than ten seconds. Our breath steamed in the air and we brushed jewels of ice-dust off our clothes and eyelashes.
'Pontius Glaw,' I said.
There was no answer, but after a moment or two, a series of animal grunts and barks mewled from the vox-speakers built into the casket.
'Glaw/1 repeated.
'What-' said an artificial voice.
Bequin stiffened.
'What have you woken me to?'
'What is the last thing you remember, Glaw?'
'Promises... promises...' the voice said, coming and going as if drifting away from the microphone and then back. 'Where is Urisel?'
What promises were made to you, Glaw?'
'Life...' it murmured. 4Vhere is Urisel?' There was a tone now, an anger or an impatience. 'Where is he?'
I began to frame another question, but there was a sudden flash of activity, a crackle of electronic synapses firing across the crystal surface of the ball. It had lashed out with its mind, with its potent psychic powers. If Bequin had not been here, cancelling it out, no doubt Aemos and I would have been dead.
Temper, temper...' I said. I took a step towards the casket. '1 am Eisenhorn, Imperial inquisitor. You are my prisoner and you only enjoy cognitive function because I allow it. You will answer my questions.'
'I... will... not.'
I shrugged. 'Aemos, disconnect this menace and prepare it for disintegration!'
Wait! Wait!' the voice was pleading despite its colourless artificiality.
I knelt down in front of the casket. 'I know that your life and intellect were preserved in this device, Pontius Glaw. I know you have waited for two centuries, trapped in a bodiless state, desperate to be made whole again. That is what your family promised you, wasn't it?'
'Urisel promised... he said it be so... the methods were prepared...'
To sacrifice the nobility of Hubris so that their life energies might be siphoned off into you through this casket. To give you the power to create a body for yourself
'He promised!' The stress fell on the second word, anguished and deep.
'Urisel and the others abandoned you, Pontius. They abandoned the Hubris project at the last minute in favour of something else. They are now all in the custody of the Inquisition.'
'Nooooo...' The word turned into a hiss that died away. They would not...'
'I'm sure they wouldn't... unless it was something so vital, so unmissable that they had no choice. You'd know what that would be, wouldn't you?'
Silence.
What would be more important to them than you, Pontius Glaw?'
Silence.
'Pontius?'
They are not caught/
'What? Who are not?'
'My brethren. My kin... If you had them, you would not be asking these questions. They are free and you are desperate/
'Not at all. You know how it is... so many lies, so many conflicting stories. Your pitiful family trying to sell each other out in exchange for freedom. I came to you for the truth/
'No. Credible but no.'
'You know what it is, Pontius/
'No/
'You know what it is. They woke you from time to time to keep you informed, woke you from the oblivion that surrounds you in that globe. Beneath House Glaw, for example, in that chapel they built to contain you. I saw you there. You subdued me with your power/
'I would do so again/ it said, traces of fire once more flickering along the golden filaments and woven circuits that encased the jagged, quartz-like lump.
You know what it is. They told you/
'No/
I reached down and grasped a sheaf of wires. You're lying/ I said and yanked the wires out.
A brief moan rolled from the vox-speakers and faded. The lights on the casket went out. Air temperature and pressure began to climb again. The frost began to dissolve.
'Not much then/ said Bequin.
'We're just beginning/1 replied. 'We've got thirty weeks/
SEVENTEEN
Discourses.
Speculation on an unsymmetrical theme.
Betrayal.
I went the hold each day with Bequin and Aemos and we repeated the procedure. For the next few days, he refused even to answer. After about a week, h
e began to goad us and abuse us with threats and obscenities. Every few days, he tried to lash out psychically, thwarted each time by Bequin's untouchable presence.
All the while, the Essene plunged through the Immaterium towards the distant stargroup.
In the fourth week, I changed tactics, and entered into discussion with him on any subject mat occurred to me. I didn't ask a single question concerning the 'true matter'. He refused to engage for the first few days, but I remained cordial and greeted him patiently each session. At last, discourses began: on astral navigation, high ecclesiarch music, architecture, stellar demographics, antique weapons, fine wines...
He could not help himself. The isolation of his condition made him crave such contacts with a real, vibrant world. He longed to taste and read and see and live again. Within two weeks he needed no encouragement to talk. I was no friend, and he was still wary, and keen to insult on any occasion, but he clearly welcomed our conversations. When, deliberately, I missed a day, he complained sullenly, as if wounded or let down.
For my part, I had the chance to realise how dangerous Glaw was. His mind was brilliant; charming, witty, incisive, and formidably knowledgeable. It was a pleasure to talk to him and learn from him. It was a salutary reminder of the quality of mind that Chaos can steal. The greatest of us, the brightest, the most urbane and learned, can fall prey.
One day in the tenth week, I entered the chamber with Bequin and Aemos as usual and we woke him. But an uncommon sensation troubled me.
'What is this?' I said. It seemed to me the casket was not quite in the same place as usual. 'Have you been in here, Aemos?' I asked. 'Even to make standard checks?'
'No/ he assured me. The hold was locked as a matter of course after each session.
'My imagination then/ I decided.
Our discourses continued, pleasantly, each morning for an hour or so. We often discussed Imperial policies and ethics, subjects on which he was astonishingly well-read. He never strayed, never allowed himself to profess a belief or concept that might be deemed counter to the strictures of the Imperium, as if he recognised that such an admission would perforce end our entente. On occasions, I gave him openings to do so, conversational gambits that would allow him space and opportunity to criticise or denounce the way of the God-Emperor and the rule of Terra. He resisted, though at times I felt he was desperate to voice his own, contrary beliefs. But his need for activity and contact was paramount. He would not risk losing our interaction.